Topic: Can Detroit get any worse? (Read 4744 times)

2014-09-13, 23:39:08

Recently a news item on the city was still in the shocking corner. Well over 700,000 citizens have no water. So nothing for drinking, washing, disposing of sewage. Apparently they cannot afford the cost and the city pulled the l=plug so to speak. Most of us have seen the rows of empty homes, ruins and now this. It is tragic in this modern day and age for this nightmare to show no sign of being dealt with - just get worse.

If the pipe walls had "rifling" (an internal swirling pattern), the fluid would rotate on it's way down. Rotation inhibits momentum exchange between the center and edges because of the Coriolis effect: a parcel of fluid moving outward will find itself moving inward at half a rotation later.

I can't for the life of me Google up anything right now to support what I'm about to say, that is as close as I got. But I was watching either a documentary or tech development channel on YouTube (for crowd funding projects) sometime back where they were using internal rifling of water pipes to produce better water effects for fountain shows. By rotating the water they could control the stream better, like shooting a bullet. Even creating arcs that flew thru the air without dispersing much.

It's not unreasonable to say nature figured this out long ago. Visually this even kinda checks out, I think. But I'm not gonna use any methodology to figure this out so really I'm just talking out of my... (haha. I'll let someone else finish that sentence.)

It's not unreasonable to say nature figured this out long ago. Visually this even kinda checks out, I think. But I'm not gonna use any methodology to figure this out so really I'm just talking out of my... (haha. I'll let someone else finish that sentence.)

Speaking from personal experience, at the start it's a stream but by the time it approaches the ground it's more like drops. Never tried to pee on an electric fence though.

I don't know how I missed it, but Mr. Howie's claim that well over 700,000 citizens have no water is wrong. That's the population of the city in 2014. In 1950, the population of the city was 1,849,568. That decline is the result of a number of factors, one of which was the deindustrialization of the city, the other being the movement of Southerners from the deep South to fill defense jobs as auto production was cut during WWII. That move from the South's segregated towns and cities to an open city had profound consequences. I witnessed one of those consequences when the brother of a friend was stabbed in 1943 riots.

History is always more complicated than it appears in DnD discussions.

Quote

"The expansion of the auto industry nearly a century ago fueled a growth spurt that made Detroit the fourth largest city in the country. By 1950, the population peaked at almost 1.85 million as people moved to Detroit to work at the Big Three auto companies: Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. But it was at the height of this prosperity that the manufacturers began to restructure, and the risks of the city's reliance on a single industry became apparent, according to Thomas J. Sugrue's essay "Motor City: The Story of Detroit."First, there was decentralization. Strikes, inspired by union negotiations and a refusal by blacks and whites to work side by side, were halting progress, according to "Detroit, Race and Uneven Development," co-written by Joe T. Darden. Factories were built in the suburbs and in neighboring states so that if there was a protest in one factory, work could still continue elsewhere. But as the factories spread out, so too did the job opportunities.When the industry then experimented with automation, replacing assembly-line jobs with machinery, tens of thousands of jobs were lost. The industry shrank even more during the energy crisis in the 1970s and the economic recession in the 1980s. And foreign competition caused profits to plummet.As auto jobs moved elsewhere and the region aged, Detroit's labor costs -- retiree health care costs, especially -- increased substantially.Though other cities experienced their own booms and busts, Detroit suffered more because it didn't diversify, said Kevin Boyle, a Detroit historian who has written extensively about his native city. Places such as Chicago and Pittsburgh relied on other areas - like banking or education - beyond the industries that started their success.The auto industry "was like Silicon Valley in the 1980s," Mr. Boyle said. It was doing so well, he said, that Detroit officials didn't see a need to do anything differently.

Tensions between the races have been high since the 1940s, when Southern blacks began moving to Detroit in search of work at automobile factories, said Mr. Boyle, the historian.As the migration of blacks who swept into Detroit became especially intense, middle-class whites began moving to the newly built suburbs. But violent 1967 riots turned this stream into a torrent."It's really hard to overstate how deep the fear was, on both sides of the color line," Mr. Boyle said.And after the riots, Detroit failed to bounce back, Mr. Boyle said. Businesses followed their customers. Thousands of houses were abandoned as the city's population plunged."In some cities like Chicago, Boston and maybe New York, people say to themselves, 'I want to be in this neighborhood where I grew up, where my grandparents live or where my synagogue is' -- that really roots people in place," he said. "Detroit didn't work that way."During the 1950s, the city lost 363,000 white residents while it gained 182,000 black residents. In 1950, the population was 16 percent black, and by the time of the 1967 riot it had grown to a third. Today, about 82 percent of the city's population is black."

Accept a wrong figure while I must say that there are is still a disturbing number of people without water and even more staggering the number of commercial companies with a problem now too. It is a shocking thing in a non-Third World country for such a situation to be occurring and one cannot but feel a sadness for those suffering.

They have a "wider" democracy...! Simple answers for simple people, RJ.

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

There have also been other places in the ex-colonial corner who have been bankrupt.

How many of them had a long tradition of Democrat control?

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

Sang, they're not highly "democratic" -- they're highly Democratic! The people in charge are the problem... They believe things that aren't so. But they love power and money so much that they never "look under the hood".When the engine seizes, they think they can just call AAA. But if they've already killed the first "A" that may not help them much.

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

This is one of the dumbest GOP memes of all time, based on a few cities. There's not much of correlation, let alone evidence of causation, of a city or region being prosperous or depressed based on the party in charge. In fact, some of the most prosperous cities in the country are Democratic and some depressed ones are republican. If it was simply party in charge. Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps it is the Republicans that gave Mississippi a horrific 22.6 percent poverty rate and a low household income. Or are you willing to grow a brain and understand there's a lot more factors than the party rules?

"What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter." ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Care to name names? The Democrat style of governing has predictable results. (That's "predictable" in the sense of foretelling the future... Not like making a guess that jibes with you biases.) Higher taxes, failing services, dwindling tax base.

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

So I take you can't answer why some of the most prosperous cities in America, host to some of the most admired companies in the world are headed by Democrats. Neither can you answer why the entire states mired in poverty are controlled by Republicans. Out of the top 100 cities in the country, 67 are headed by Democrats and 27 are by Republicans. The remainder are independents (such as Las Vegas) and have unknown party affiliations (including a non-partisan mayor's office.) Get it? Slightly more than 2/3 of America's large cities are run by Democrats, so automatically this means the poor large cities are run by that party. This also means that most of the prosperous ones are run by Democrats. But why is that we have Red states with poverty exceeding 20% of the population? Entire states, not just troubled post-industrial cities in the Midwest.

You wanted cities names? Mobile Alabama, with a poverty rate ~30%. Red states are full of this. Nearly all of Appalachia has been run by Republicans and has been mired in poverty for decades? Why haven't the Republican leaders there did anything about it? I'm sure Detroit has had incompetent Democratic leadership. But entire regions of the country have suffered similarly under incompetent Republican leadership.

"What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter." ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

For much the same reason Scotland's poor can only multiply, divide and subtract; but not add.

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

Cities need to adapt or die, Detroit have had difficulties with the former and barely staved off the latter. It would not have been an easy transition in any case, but the US urban problems have been in good parts self-inflicted wounds. A city is a living entity, but the US has allowed economic gerrymandering on a metropolitan level, letting wealthy suburban parasites wall themselves off in tax-heaven ghettos, strangling the rest of the city of resources, to let it fall in the hands of loan sharks.

And it seems simple minded to blame all on the party in charge. Detroit lost the auto industry, Appalachia is losing the coal mines. The former is run by Democrats and the later by Republicans and they're both facing the same problems, except a small county in West Virginia isn't as noticeable on the national level as Detroit.

"What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter." ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Might that have something to do with the federal government's EPA...?Dems "do 'em in" every which way they can. When they can't gain local control, there's always the last resorts: The federal government -- and the courts, if the executive branch is stymied.

Last Edit: 2016-12-23, 02:30:36 by OakdaleFTL

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman

Well we only grow in numbers Oakdale due to bleeding immigrants. Anyway.

The matter of lost industry in America can have examples in both the giant parties which have carved up the country to degrees. My everlasting point about the massive numbers who are at the bottom apply to both political giants and as long as that situation continues they are going to be a permanent sadness and disgrace. So many decent people in their tens of millions........

Heal their wounds, when you can -- where they were wounded, their home regions.

Your idea of "massive numbers" is less than 1%... But you don't apply the same standards to your country. (I know you're "math-challenged" but you're also inarticulate and illiterate... So, what's your problem? Derangement.)

So many silly fallacious arguments from you -- all to the same point: The U.S. is bad, because it's done some of the same things we did!I still think it's envy, RJ!

进行 ... "Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James ThurberNo one listens to me as much as I do and even I have my limits..."Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman